Anarchists From France

"What dreadful weather always raining the poor flowers were hardly open when the rain killed them our big red poppies didn't even have time to appear before they disappeared and the roses, poor roses it's so sad and what mud, impossible to put your feet out of doors. ..it's so cold that the asparagus haven't come out, nor have the peas or the beans I planted. Most of them have rotted I'll have to plant them all over again. Luckily we are not ready to eat them yet, by the grace of God. Write to us and tell me what you are doing."

"It was then [c. 1873], as I remember that Paul Cézanne began to paint with vertical divisions and Papa adopted the long brush to paint in little comma's. A peasant who had watched them side by side at Auvers, remarked that 'M. Pissarro at working, made little stabs at the canvas ('il piquait'), and M. Cézanne laid on the paint like plaster ('il plaquait')."

"The weather today is frightful, rain and wind. You must be having the same at Epping; it's a pity. It had been so fine for the last few days and I had begun to grind away from nature. This is infuriating, for it's the loveliest time of the year, September and October. I can't stand the summer any more, with its heavy, monotonous green, its dry distances where everything can be seen, the torment of the great heat.. .Artistic sensations revive in September and October, but then it rains and blows!"

"One can do such lovely things with so little. Subjects that are too beautiful end by appearing theatrical – take Switzerland, for example. Think of all the beautiful little things Corot did at Gisors; two willows, a little water, a bridge, like the picture in the Universal Exhibition. What a masterpiece!.. .Everything is beautiful, all that matters is to be able to interpret."

"It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.. .So much the better if it is painful for you to take even the first step, the more toilsome the work, the stronger you will emerge from it.. .I repeat, guard against facility."

"I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty.. ..but only vaguely. At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it."

"I think continually of some way of painting without the dot. I hope to achieve this but I have not been able to solve the problem of dividing the pure tone without harshness.. .How can one combine the purity and simplicity of the dot with the fullness, suppleness, liberty, spontaneity and freshness of sensation postulated by our impressionist art? This is the question which preoccupies me, for the dot is meager, lacking in body, diaphanous, more monotonous than simple, even in the Seurat's, particularly in the Seurat's [paintings].. .I'm constantly pondering this question, I shall go to the Louvre to look at certain painters who are interesting from this point of view. Isn't it senseless that there are no Turners [here].."

"Each one of us [artists] has several facets. The surface often appears more important than what is inside, hence the errors of those who judge carelessly. How many times has that not happened to me! The surface is often complete in some people from the very beginning, but not the possession of their own sensations. From this come errors. Some natures achieve the surface very slowly j this is the least danger an artist runs. So one should not think of the surface or the appearance, but concentrate on what is inner!"

"Work at the same time upon water, sky, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression."

"advice to a young painter, (1896); as quoted in Painting Outside the lines, Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art, ed. David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 30 Jun 2009, pp. 84-85, note 40."

"I can quite understand the effort he is making; it is a very good thing not to want to go on repeating oneself. But he has concentrated all his attention on line; the figures stand out against each other without any sort of relationship, and so the whole thing is meaningless. Renoir is no draughtman, and without the lovely colours he used to use so instinctively, he is incoherent."

"Bracquemond tells me that he looked attentively at my works at our exhibition. Far from objecting to them, as I expected, he said they were compactly drawn, and modeled, but he is shocked by the dots; he enjoined me to stick to divisionism but not to use the dot. - I said nothing to him of our experiments. He told me that of all the impressionist painters he liked my work best; this was not the first time he had said this; to each one his own taste. He does completely accept my view that the old disorderly method of execution has become impossible."

"I have had a long talk with Renoir. He admitted that the whole crowd – Durand and his former admirers – were shouting at him, deploring his attempt to abandon his 'Romantic' period. He seems very sensitive to what we think of his exhibition. I told him that as far as we were concerned, the search for unity should be the aim of every intelligent artist. – that even in spite of serious faults, it was more intelligent and artistic than wallowing in romanticism."

"I wish it to be thoroughly under stood that it is Mr. Seurat, an artist of great worth, who has been the first to conceive the idea of applying the scientific theory after making a profound study of it. I have only followed, like my confreres, the example set by Seurat."

"Yesterday Sisley was looking for me everywhere. Madame Latouche told me that he wanted some information about the technique of painting fans. Well, this means my fans are spoken of.. .I only fear one thing: that they will finally say that's all I am good for! [fans!]"

"I saw Guillaumin. We went to look at my two latest paintings which were bought by Durand. All he said was 'there's no firmness in the foreground'. It was evening, we were seeing the paintings by gas-light, which neutralized the orange tones. As Seurat says, what they [the Impressionists]] look for is thick impasto; but at Clauzet's I saw a Guillaumin, also in the evening, and it looked made of tar, so much shellac was used at the base of this painting, which in my view is really old stuff; it must be admitted that he made an effort to tighten the design but then the harmonies are insignificant and lack logic - there is no drawing, there is a flurry of colors, but no modeling; it is one step from [w: Jules Dupré|Jules Dupreé]] - modernized."

"P.S. If you happen to see Seurat or if you write to Signac, tell them that I have tried the mixture of cadmium (well recommended by Contet) , with red, white and Veronese green. It becomes black in four or five days from the Veronese green. Even blacker than the chrome yellow mixture. Tell this to Contet."

"The day after your departure I started a new painting at Le Cours-la-Reine, in the afternoon in a glow of sun, and another in the morning by the water below St. Paul's Church. These two canvases are fairly well advanced, but I still need one session in fine weather without too much mist to give them a little firmness. Until now I have not been able to find the effect I want, I have even been forced to change the effect a bit, which is always dangerous. I have also an effect of fog.. .Until now I have not been able to find the effect I want, I have even been forced to change the effect a bit, which is always dangerous. I have also an effect of fog, another, same effect, from my window, the same motif in the rain, several sketches in oils, done on the quays near the boats; the next day it was impossible to go on, everything was confused, the motifs no longer existed ; one has to realize them in a single session."

"The ones [compliments] I value most came from Edgar Degas who said he was happy to see my work becoming more and more pure. The etcher Bracquemond, a pupil of Ingres, said - possibly he meant what he said - that my work shows increasing strength. I will calmly tread the path I have taken, and try to do my best. At bottom, I have only a vague sense of its rightness or wrongness. I am much disturbed by my unpolished and rough execution. I should like to develop a smoother technique which, while retaining the old fierceness, would be rid of those jarring notes which make it difficult to see my canvases clearly except when the light falls in front. There lies the difficulty - not to speak of drawing."

"I recognize fully that you do not draw well, my dear Lucien [his son, also painter]. I told you any number of times that it is essential to have known forms in the eye and in the hand. It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character."

"Look for the kind of nature that suits your temperament. The motif should be observed more for shape and color than for drawing. There is no need to tighten the form which can be obtained without that. Precise drawing is dry and hampers the impression of the whole, it destroys all sensations. Do not define too closely the outlines of things; it is the brushstroke of the right value and color which should produce the drawing. In a mass, the greatest difficulty is not to give the contour in detail, but to paint what is within. Paint the essential character of things, try to convey it by any means whatsoever, without bothering about technique.—When painting, make a choice of subject, see what is lying at the right and what at the left, and work on everything simultaneously. Don't work bit by bit but paint everything at once by placing tones everywhere, with brushstrokes of the right color and value, while noticing what is alongside. Use small brushstrokes and try to put down your perceptions immediately. The eye should not be fixed on one point, but should take in everything, while observing the reflections which the colors produce on their surroundings. Work at the same time upon the sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Cover the canvas at the first go, then work at it until you can see nothing more to add. Observe the aerial perspective as well, from the foreground to the horizon, the reflection of the sky, of foilage. Don't be afraid of putting on color, refine the work little by little.—Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression you feel. Don't be timid in front of nature: one must be bold, at the risk of being deceived and making mistakes. One must have only one master—nature; she is the one always to be consulted."

"Renoir is a great success on the Salon; I think he is 'launched'. All the better! It's a very hard life, being poor."

"I hope that with the help of van Van Gogh and Durand we will be able to emerge from this situation [selling nothing]. It seems to me that I deserve no less, since I have worked conscientiously. I do not believe that anyone could devote - if not more talent - more care and good will to the service of his art; it takes me hours of reflection to decide on the slightest detail. Is this impatience?.. .I think not! For I do not wish to make a brush stroke when I do not feel complete mastery of my subject, there's the rub - that is the great difficulty; without sensation, nothing, absolutely nothing valid.. .I believe I have hit my stride. I have begun a series of things which will really be in my style."

"What I dislike is that he [= Paul Gauguin ] copied these elements from the Japanese, the Byzantine painters and others. I criticize him for not applying his synthesis to our modern philosophy which is absolutely social, anti-authoritarian and anti-mystical. - There is where the problem becomes serious. This is a step backwards; Gauguin is not a seer, he is a schemer.. .The symbolists also take this line! What do you think? They must be fought like the pest!"

"I don't know what to write Feneon about the theory of 'passages'. I will write him what seems to me to be the truth of the matter, that I am at this moment looking for some substitute for the dot [which was the 'heart of [w:Neo-Impressionism|Neo-Impressionist]] painting]; so far I have not found what I want, the actual execution does not seem to me to be rapid enough and does not follow sensation with enough inevitability, but it would be best not to speak of this. The fact is I would be hard put to express my meaning clearly, although I am completely aware of what I lack."

"[ Seurat's pointilist style ].. ..inhibits me and hinders the development of spontaneity of sensation."

"I brought Durand eight pictures, among them my 'Sunset' and the motif done from my window. They have been praised, but I find them poor, - tame, grey, monotonous, - I am not at all satisfied. - I am working with fury and I have finally discovered the right execution, the search for which has tormented me for a year. I am pretty sure I have it now, all I need is to spend this coming autumn in Rouen or in some other place where I can find striking motifs."

"I have just concluded my series of paintings, I look at them constantly. I who made them often find them horrible. I understand them only at rare moments, when I have forgotten all about them, on days when I feel kindly disposed and indulgent to their poor maker. Sometimes I am horribly afraid to turn round canvases which I have piled against the wall; I am constantly afraid of finding monsters where I believed there were precious gems !.. .Thus it does not astonish me that the critics in London relegate me to the lowest rank. Alas! I fear that they are only too justified! - However, at times I come across works of mine which are soundly done and really in my style, and at such moments I find great solace. But no more of that. Painting, art in general, enchants me. It is my life. What else matters?"

"Lighten your palette [his remark to Cézanne circa 1873, to encourage Cézanne to use bright colors], paint only with the three primary colours and their derivatives."

"I am settled in France, and as for the rest of my history as a painter, it is bound up with the impressionistic group."

"What I have suffered you cannot imagine. But what I'm going through [circa 1878] now is even worse, much more so than when I was young.. ..because now I feel as if I have no future. Even so, if I had to do it again, I still think I wouldn't hesitate."

"The next day he [uncle Alfred] took me to hear the 'Concert Colonne' at the Chatelet. First we lunched and then went to the hall. There was a fine program! Schumann, Bizet (new to me), Berlioz (ditto). - I can scarcely express how I marveled at the Hamlet and Romeo et Juliette of Berlioz. - He belongs with Delacroix, with Shakespeare, he is of the same family, he has the mark of these men of genius. He is prodigious in movement, imagination, strangeness, vigor, delicacy, sense of contrast, he is terrible and suave."

"I well remember that around 1874, Duret, who is above reproach, Duret himself said to me with all sorts of circumlocutions that I was on the wrong track, that everyone thought so, including my best friends.. .I admit that when alone, with nobody to prompt me, I reproached myself similarly, - I plumbed myself, - decision was terribly hard. - Should I, yes or no, persevere [or seek] another way? I concluded in the affirmative, I took into account the risks of the unknown, and I was right to stick."

"I am hard at work, at least I work as much as the weather permits. - I began a work the motif of which is the river bank in the direction of St. Paul's Church. Looking towards Rouen I have before me all the houses on the quays lighted by the morning sun, in the background the stone bridge, to the left the island with its houses, factories, boats, launches, to the right a mass of pinnaces of all colors.. .Yesterday, not having the sun, I began another work on the same motif in grey weather, only I looked more to the right [603]. I must leave you for my motif. I have a room on the street. I shall start on a view of the street in fog for it has been foggy every morning until eleven o'clock—noon. It should be interesting, the square in the fog, the tramways, the goings and comings.."

"Of the three primary colors, the three binary ones are formed. If you add to one of these the primary tone that is its opposite, it cancels it out. This means that you produce the required half-tone. Therefore, adding black is not adding a half-tone, it is soiling the tone whose true half-tone resides in this opposite me have just described. Hence the green shadows found in red. The heads of the two little peasants. The yellow one had purple shadows; the redder and more sanguine one had green ones."

"Neo-Impressionist method is an attempt is made to achieve the richness of the sunlight spectrum with all its tones. An orange that blends with yellow and red, a violet that tends toward red and blue, a green between blue and yellow are, with white the sole elements. Through mixture (in the eye of the observer) of these pure colours, whose relationship can be varied at will, from the most brilliant to the greyish. Every brush stroke that is taken from the palette remains pure on the canvas."

"Divisionism is a complex system of harmony, an aesthetic rather than a technique. The point is only a means. To divide is to seek the power and harmony of color, through representing colored light by pure elements, and through employing the optical mixture of these pure elements, separated and proportioned according to the essential laws of contrast and graduation."

"..it [the large painting 'Bathers at Asnieres', by Georges Seurat was painted in great flat strokes, brushed one over the other, fed by a palette composed, like Delacroix's, of pure and earthy colors. By means of these ochres and browns the picture is deadened, and appears less brilliant than those the impressionists paint with a palette limited to prismatic colors. But the understanding of the laws of contrast, the methodical separation of elements — light, shade, local color, and the interaction of colors — and their proper balance and proportion, give this canvas its perfect harmony."

"The Neo-Impressionist does not stipple, he divides. And dividing involves... guaranteeing all benefits of light."

"The Pointillist chooses a means of expression by which he applies colour on a canvas in small dots rather than spreading it flat."

"Frankly, this is my position: I have been painting for two years, and my only models have been your [ Monet's ] own works; I have been following the wonderful path you broke for us. I have always worked regularly and conscientiously, but without advice or help, for I do not know any impressionist painter who would be able to guide me, living as I am in an environment more or less hostile to what I am doing. And so I fear I may lose my way, and I beg you to let me see you, if only for a short visit. I should be happy to show you five or six studies; perhaps you would tell me what you think of them and give me the advice I need so badly, for the fact is that I have the most horrible doubts, having always worked by myself, without teacher, encouragement, or criticism."

"It seems that the first consideration of a painter who stands before the white canvas should be to decide what curves and arabesques should cut the surface, what tints and tones should cover it.. .Following the precepts of Delacroix he would not begin a composition until he had first determined its organization. Guided by tradition and by science, he would adjust the composition to his conception, that is to say he would adapt the lines (directions and angles), the chiaroscuro (tones), the colors (tints), to the traits he wished to make dominant."

"We have never heard Seurat, Cross, Luce, Van de Velde or indeed Van Rysselberghe or Angrand speak of dots. We have never seen them be preoccupied by Pointillism. Read these lines, dictated by Seurat to Jules Christophe, his biographer: 'Art is harmony; harmony is the analogy between opposites and between similar elements of tone, tint and line. By tone I mean light and dark; tint is red and its complementary: green, orange and its complementary: blue, yellow and its complementary: purple.. .The method of expression relies on the optical mixture of tones, tints and their reactions (shadows that follow very strict rules)."

"Signac [at the exhibition of 'The Independents' in Paris, March 1891] has some landscapes of the kind you know, very correct, very well executed, but cold and monotonous; he has a bizarre portrait of Fénéon, standing, holding a lily, against a background of interlaced ribbons of color which do not add to the decorative quality of the work and have no value from the point of view of sensation."

"Pissarro wants to achieve delicacy by means of adjustments of nearly like tones; he keeps from juxtaposing two distant tones and does without the vibrant note which such contrast gives, but strives on the contrary to diminish the distance between two tints by introducing into each one of them intermediate elements which he calls 'passage'. But the neo-impressionist technique is based precisely on this type of contrast, for which he feels no need, and on the violent purity of tints which hurts his eye. He has kept of divisionism only the technique, the little dot, whose raison d'etre is exactly that it enables the transcription of this contrast and the conservation of this purity. So it is easy to understand why he [Pissarro] gave up this means, insufficient as it is by itself."

"Not long before that, as I was rummaging about under the staircase of the dusty rose house on the Yakimanka, I discovered a tattered book by Signac" defending Impressionism. The author explained the "law of optical blending," glorified the method of "pointillism," and suggested how meaningful using only the pure colors of the spectrum could be. Signac based his arguments on citations from his idol, Eugène Delacroix. Time and again he referred to his Journey to Morocco, as if leafing through a codex of visual training intended as obligatory reading for every thinking European. Signac was trumpeting on his chivalric horn the last, ripe gathering of the Impressionists. He summoned all the Zouaves, the burnooses, and the red Algerian skirts into their bright camps. At the very first sounds of this triumphant theory, my nerves grew taut. I felt a shiver of novelty, as if someone had summoned me by name..."

"Modern libertarians know of many great thinkers only because of Murray Rothbard. My favorite in this category is the 16th century anarchist, Étienne de la Boetie. To him, the great mystery of politics was obedience to rulers. Why in the world do people agree to be looted and otherwise oppressed by government overlords? It is not just fear, Boetie explains in “The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude,” for our consent is required. And that consent can be non-violently withdrawn."

"Ils veulent servir pour amasser des biens: comme s'ils pouvaient rien gagner qui fût à eux, puisqu'ils ne peuvent même pas dire qu'ils sont à eux-mêmes."

"The mob has always behaved in this way—eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honorably endured."

"Friendship ... flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by sincerity."